Variation between spending on primary and secondary education is stark finds new LSE research

More money is spent on pupils in secondary school than in primary school - yet primary education is vital to future success. This is the central finding of research released today as part of the Primary Review.

The Funding of English Primary Education, by Dr Philip Noden and Professor Anne West, Education Research Group, LSE, looks at how much money is spent by schools on primary education per pupil and how this has changed over time, in comparison with expenditure in secondary schools. It also highlights variation between local authorities and between Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

Key findings:

• Historically, in England primary schools have been less generously funded than secondary schools but it is by no means self-evident that this should be the case
• There is marked variation between local authorities in the level of expenditure per pupil in primary schools compared with expenditure per pupil in secondary schools
• In general schools in the shire counties receive the lowest levels of funding per pupil and those located in London receive much higher levels of funding. This is largely a function of the differing proportions of pupils with additional educational needs and area differences in costs
• There is similar degree of variation in the relative level of funding for primary education compared with secondary education across local authorities and also internationally across the countries of the OECD
• Taking into account the different cost of goods in different countries, the United Kingdom is ranked 12th out of the 29 OECD countries in expenditure on primary education although when expenditure is expressed relative to gross domestic product (GDP) per capita the UK appears 18th out of the 29 countries

Recommendations:

• Though restoring stability in school funding has been a key priority for government, this should not remove the possibility of the Government adjusting levels of core funding to address new priorities, including reducing the disparity between primary and secondary funding

Professor Anne West said: 'It is not clear on purely educational grounds why we should spend so much on our 11 year olds than our 10 year olds. Primary education provides the foundations for later learning and it is vitally important for as many children as possible to have a high quality primary education.'

The research was released today as one of four interim reports commissioned as expert evidence by the Primary Review, a two year programme based at Cambridge University, examining how well the current English system of primary education is doing and how it can be improved.

Visit www.primaryreview.org.uk/ to download the full paper.

Ends

Contact

Professor Anne West by calling 020 7955 7269 or by emailing a.west@lse.ac.uk

Dr Philip Noden by calling 020 7955 7381 or by emailing p.noden@lse.ac.uk 

Esther Avery, LSE Press Office, by calling 020 7955 7060 or by emailing e.avery@lse.ac.uk

Richard Margrave, Primary Review director of Communications, by calling 01277 214 219 or 07789 692 360  or by emailing richard@margrave.co.uk

Notes

The Primary Review interim reports

This research survey is one of four commissioned as expert evidence to the Primary Review. Together with others in an interim report series which will eventually number 32, they are being published now in order to encourage discussion and debate.

So far, 23 interim reports have been published: on the Review’s regional community soundings (12 October 2007); on educational standards, testing and assessment (2 November 2007); on children’s lives outside school, and on parenting, caring, educating and the work of schools and other agencies (23 November 2007); on children’s development, learning and special educational needs (14 December 2007); on aims, values and the national and international context of future provision (18 January 2008); and on the structure and content of primary education, using comparisons between England and other countries (8 February 2008). All are available at www.primaryreview.org.uk

The Primary Review

Based at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and directed by Professor Robin Alexander, the Primary Review was launched in October 2006 and will run for two years. It aims to gather evidence from a wide range of sources, sift facts from rhetoric, and stimulate debate about the future of this vital phase of education. The Review will culminate in a report containing recommendations for future policy and practice. The most comprehensive such enquiry since the Plowden Report of 1967, the Primary Review is examining how well the current English system of primary education is doing, how it can be improved and how primary schools should respond to the national and global challenges which lie ahead. Along the way, the Review is assessing the impact of government primary education initiatives of the past 20 years.

29 February 2008

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